Sundays are the only day of the week that I do NOT have any classes. Generally, I wake up a little later (providing the kids don’t run all over me at 6am!). I get up around 10am or so, feed them, make my coffee, and after an hour or so, things seem to be clear again. That’s when the realization sets in, that it’s now going on 1pm!

Yet, I haven’t done anything. Well, anything constructive. Every week I vow to clean up the apartment, do the laundry, get some more painting or touch-ups done on the apartment… but do I do it? No. I end up watching some mindless program on Justin.tv, or playing my inane games on Facebook, or catching up on the weeks dribble that others have posted.

Then, something comes over me… hunger. Throughout the week, I only eat one meal a day – dinner. On most evenings, that means my food intake happens around 10pm. But for some reason, on Sundays, those hunger pangs happen around 5pm. So, out I go for a jaunt around the neighbourhood to see what delicacies I’m going to consume. Today was McDonalds. Ugh.

I’m not a big fan of McDonalds in Taiwan. Unlike North American outlets, they only prepare your order when you actually order it. Which means, in my opinion, it is far from being ‘fast food’. You want a Big Mac, fries and a drink, they will make that ONE Mac, fry up ONE order of fries, and get your drink ready. Average time spent in McD’s in Tainan – about 10-15 minutes… depending on how many orders are ahead me.

This time, there were about 20 kids waiting, and only one cashier. Typical. I watched each of these orders leaving the counter – French fries. That’s it. Nothing else. All they really want, is a place to sit, chat, play on their phones and pads and laptops for the next 3 or 4 hours. Personally, I couldn’t sit in McD’s that long. Actually, it’s rare to even be able to find a seat because of all the kids eating fries.

Later on, the kids will post their plethora of fries on Facebook to show the world how many orders of fries can fit on a serving tray. Oh to be young and have absolutely nothing to do and have everything given to me.

So, grab my 20 nuggets and drink, and head home. Easier that way.

As you all know, I have six cats. This is definitely not a record, but having six ‘kids’ around all the time – well, any of you who have ‘kids’ or the real thing, can understand.

Two of these kids, seem to like to eat what I eat. It’s difficult finding cat food in Taiwan that isn’t mostly fish. It seems the pet food producers in Asia are under the delusion that cats only eat fish. Have they never heard of cats eating mice? How about birds?

Now, I’m not about to condone cat food made of mice or birds, but why not beef or chicken? There is one brand of cat food I have found that has cheese and chicken. My cats seem to enjoy the dietary change. However, both of these have mostly tuna.

Back to McD’s. Ignatius seems to be the one cat who is almost willing to try anything I’m eating – no matter what it is. Again, he’s quite similar in attitude as Mhoram was. Mhoram, a cat I had in Canada for 19 years prior to my coming to Taiwan, would eat almost anything that I would. I used to call him my biological vacuum cleaner!

I’ve discovered over the past couple of years, that Ignatius has this penchant for chicken. So, on the rare occasions that I do end up at McD’s, I pick up nuggets. I usually get to eat 15 and Ignatius will eat 5. The same as when I get deep fry. I will always pick up a small amount of chicken just for him. No seasoning, just plain deep-fried chicken chunks. The others just sort of sniff it, and walk away, leaving Ignatius to enjoy his own special meal.

After finishing up my dinner, watched a couple more episodes of “Shameless (UK)”, caught up all my lesson planning for the week, and before I knew it – 11pm.